Heralded reporter to lecture about civil rights cold cases

The lecture is one of several events in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Rights Commemorative series.

Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter who helped bring murderous Klansman to justice, will present a lecture on civil rights cold cases on Thursday, April 18, 2013. The free, public event will be held 6:30-8 p.m. in the Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th St. South.

Mitchell is a journalist for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and his work is credited with the arrests of Byron De La Beckwith, for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers; Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966; Bobby Cherry, for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls; and Edgar Ray Killen, for helping organize the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Mitchell has received many national awards including a prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant.